What would Belichick have done?

This is a question I often ask myself whenever there is a major coaching decision to be made. 4th and 1 on the opponents’ 1 yard line? There is no question that Belichick would have gone for it…with Matt Cassel behind center or Tom Brady…with RB BenJarvis Johnson-Smith-Claxine-Waters-Green-Ellis or Corey Dillon…wouldn’t matter. He would have gone for it. Belichick wouldn’t have run it 3 times either – would have probably tried at least one pass play.

That said, at the time, I was hesitant myself to agree with Steve who was screaming over the phone that we had to go for it. His case was understandably based in part on the horrendous kick-off coverage – noting it would be relatively easy for Carolina with that much time to get down the field to at least tie on a field goal – but much harder for them to score a TD. After talking for a minute, I agreed with him, but I was still thinking about the need to just get points on the board to take the lead. I don’t see McCarthy’s decision as an egregious, unforgivable error. It was an understandable decision. But this did strike me as one of those situations where a coach could put himself on the line a bit and make a ballsy call. So again, ask yourself what the best coach of the last decade would have done (OK yes, he probably would have had the advantage of knowing ahead of time what defensive line-up Carolina would have used due to having studied the illegal video library of their situational defenses…but still) – he would have gone for it.

Also, in the end, I would have rather lost having taken a chance with our strong offense than losing the way we did.

We could also ask what Mike Sherman would have done – probably punted.

4 Responses to “What would Belichick have done?”

A coach with foresight would have factored in the ST’s inability to make a stop. I have no problem with the field goal. I do have a problem kicking away against the wind on the ensuing kickoff. Poor performance has been the hallmark of ST play for weeks. Nothing has been done to fix it. That, to me, was the error in judgement. If MM concurred with Stock on that decision the blame for the loss lands squarely on MM.

It was 2nd and Goal from the ONE yard line. It should not take three chances for a offense to get ONE yard. The failure of MM was not in kicking the field goal. The failure was in not being able to get ONE yard on two plays. The play calls were predictible and really helped the defense make a stand, but regardless of the play call an offense should be able to scrap out ONE yard in two plays no matter what the defense is doing. So, fault MM for not calling plays that takes advantage of a defense that is packing the middle and fault the o-line for not being able to get ONE yard on two running plays regardless of the lousy play calls.

I also wonder if Rodgers has the ability to audible out those plays. Can he call his own number to a boot-leg or a off tackle run if the defense is looking like it is going to stack the middle?